North Carolina route screening
Count personal property after liens. The limit is $20,000, or $30,000 when the surviving spouse is the sole heir. G.S. 28A-25-1 is the intestate route: it applies when the decedent died without a will.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
Threshold evidence and currency
Currency: No later session-law supersession is recorded in the reviewed source set for this threshold. The edition/currentness label below is the basis for the published figure.
Controlling citation: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-25-1 — Section history through 2021-71, s. 2.3.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
(a) When a decedent dies intestate leaving personal property, less liens and encumbrances thereon, not exceeding twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) in value, at any time after 30 days from the date of death
The headline limit is not a count of everything the person owned. It is a test of the property and deductions named by this procedure. Classify title and beneficiary status first; property that transfers by a valid survivorship right, beneficiary designation, or funded trust follows its own transfer path.
This reviewed route is limited to personal probate property. A house or other real property is not transferred through this screen, even when the personal-property total is below $20,000. Open the deed and the receiving court’s real-property instructions before assuming the simplified procedure resolves the whole estate.
The reviewed value basis subtracts enforceable liens and encumbrances. Enter the asset value and the lien separately. An unsecured bill is not a lien against an asset unless this state separately requires it as an input.
The reviewed route requires 30 days after death before the affidavit or petition can be used. That is a minimum timing condition, not a promise that the institution or court completes the transfer on that day.
A separate surviving-spouse ceiling of $30,000 appears in the reviewed rule. The relationship and inheritance condition must be true; checking a spouse box does not decide a disputed family or will question.
Assemble the death date, will status, asset titles, beneficiary confirmations, values, enforceable liens, family facts, and any prior court filing before signing anything. Then use the court publisher’s current artifact for the selected route.
North Carolina publishes both a statewide affidavit form and a statewide cost schedule, so the numbers on this page can be checked against the court's own publication.
If the state publishes no statewide form, that is a finding—not a missing link. Contact the Clerk of Superior Court or clerk in the proper county for its packet and current filing instructions rather than borrowing an unofficial form from another county.
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Probate law varies by state and county and changes over time. Verify the current rule with the court or a licensed attorney in the relevant state.
G.S. § 28A-25-1 opens the collection-by-affidavit route where a decedent dies intestate leaving personal property, less liens and encumbrances, not exceeding twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) in value, at any time after 30 days from the date of death. The affidavit is filed with the clerk and a certified copy is what the holder of the asset is shown.
Where the affiant is the surviving spouse and sole heir, and is not disqualified under G.S. § 28A-4-2, the property collectable under the section may exceed $20,000 but must not exceed thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) — measured after reduction for any spousal allowance already paid under G.S. § 30-15. The allowance therefore consumes part of the headroom rather than sitting outside it, which is the detail most often missed when the two figures are quoted side by side.
The spouse-and-sole-heir affidavit has its own recital list. It must state that the affiant is the surviving spouse and is entitled, under the Intestate Succession Act, to all of the property of the decedent, and that the value of all the personal property owned by the estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $30,000.
Two structural limits apply throughout. The section is written for a decedent who “dies intestate,” so a will takes the estate outside it, and the measured pool is personal property — the affidavit does not reach real property owned by the decedent at death. Persons entitled to receive payment include the public administrator appointed under G.S. § 28A-12-1, and heirs and creditors who are not disqualified.
Source: N.C. G.S. § 28A-25-1, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.
North Carolina eligibility map
The North Carolina threshold is one screen, not a complete legal conclusion. This map pairs the recorded ceiling with the property scope, deductions, date, and court artifact that have to be checked before relying on a likely-qualifies result.
| Question | Recorded North Carolina answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Affidavit for collection of personal property | Confirm that the will, prior appointment, family facts, and asset titles fit this route. |
| What property and basis count? | personal probate property only; net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. | Keep real property, liens, beneficiary transfers, and survivorship transfers classified separately. |
| What is the amount screen? | $20,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 30 days after death; North Carolina runs its creditor bar from publication and, for individually notified creditors, from the mailing of actual notice, with a three-year outer limit measured from death. The dates differ by trigger, so they are published separately rather than as one period. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | 1 published schedule; the proceeding and value basis control the total. | Ask the Clerk of Superior Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | The clerk may allow compensation up to 5% of receipts and expenditures. This is a ceiling, not an automatic award. The relevant base is money received and paid out during administration. | Keep the will, task log, receipts, and accounting base together; extraordinary work is separate. |
Eligibility inputs
A threshold is useful only when the amount is measured the way the source describes. Keep this table with the asset worksheet so an empty or misclassified field cannot look like a confirmed qualification.
| Input | Registry record |
|---|---|
| Threshold | $20,000 |
| Property scope | personal probate property only |
| Value basis | net of enforceable liens and encumbrances |
| Waiting period | 30 days after death |
| Required extra facts | None listed in the registry |
| Surviving-spouse ceiling | $30,000 |
Case-file context
A route answer is easier to use when the facts that can change it stay in the same record. These are the reviewed North Carolina descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
North Carolina charges $10 for facilities, $4 for court technology, and $106 for the General Court of Justice, plus $0.40 per $100 of gross estate, with the General Court of Justice assessment capped at $6,000.
1 published schedule; the proceeding and value basis control the total.
The clerk may allow compensation up to 5% of receipts and expenditures. This is a ceiling, not an automatic award.
The clerk may allow compensation up to 5% of receipts and expenditures. This is a ceiling, not an automatic award. The relevant base is money received and paid out during administration.
North Carolina runs its creditor bar from publication and, for individually notified creditors, from the mailing of actual notice, with a three-year outer limit measured from death. The dates differ by trigger, so they are published separately rather than as one period.
Court-material note: North Carolina publishes both a statewide affidavit form and a statewide cost schedule, so the numbers on this page can be checked against the court's own publication.
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded North Carolina ceiling is $20,000, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. Counted that way, $15,000 sits below the North Carolina figure and $25,000 sits above it. Both are comparisons to a published number rather than legal outcomes: two estates holding the same total can land on opposite sides of this line, because what North Carolina counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the North Carolina ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $15,000 | Below $20,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $25,000 | Above $20,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
North Carolina publishes both a statewide affidavit form and a statewide cost schedule, so the numbers on this page can be checked against the court's own publication.
Source trail
Each legal input links to the government source reviewed for this page. Source text can change; confirm the current rule before acting.
Reviewed source note: (a) When a decedent dies intestate leaving personal property, less liens and encumbrances thereon, not exceeding twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) in value, at any time after 30 days from the date of death